Knowing Can Become a Form of Control

Knowledge is useful partly because it gives us leverage.

We learn in order to solve problems, avoid mistakes, make decisions, earn trust, build competence, and predict what may happen next.

There is nothing wrong with that.

The source, drawing explicitly on Werner Erhard's account of 'knowing in order to,' points to another possibility: knowing can become organized around survival, looking good, being right, or maintaining control.

Then knowledge is doing more than illuminating the situation.

It is protecting a position.

We can recognize the shift in ordinary conversation.

I already know what kind of person this is.

I know how this always turns out.

I need to have the answer before I can participate.

The difficulty is not knowledge itself.

It is the moment when not knowing becomes too threatening to allow fresh observation.

A more flexible relationship to knowledge lets competence remain available without making certainty a requirement.

We can know what we know.

We can also notice when knowing has become a defense against seeing something new.

Knowledge is powerful.

It becomes even more useful when it does not have to control the whole encounter.